Great Western Coffee Shop

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49200999


Initially when Lisa and I ran "Well House Manor" as a hotel, we took all bookings direct - the initial intention being that rooms were purely sold with IT courses and we did not take guests when there were no courses.   Locally, other businesses got to know of our resource and they booked direct too, as did people on local recommendation - for example people coming to family gatherings in the town.  And this was a good business model, based on repeat business and recommendations.     Repeat business, though, wants reassurance that the supplier is reliably available, and so there was a realistic limit as to how far we could go in booking / encouraging this business - didn't want to turn people away too much on "sorry, full".

Enter "LATE Rooms" - very much for late bookings in our case, where we were able to use them as a consolidator to offload rooms that were unsold a few days ahead (regular business typically being planned) and reaching a wide range of potential customers who didn't know who they wanted to stay with but knew roughly where.  Although the commission rates might have taken your breath away, the practicality of it and the ease of updating meant it worked really well, and using just the one agency we found it fairly easy to control our offers and critically to co-ordinate our availability so we did not oversell.

Many other booking agencies came along to compete, and then the likes of Trivago started offering best price comparisons getting the agencies competing with each other and adding another layer of commissions onto the original agencies.  TripAdvisor started offering direct links to hotels cutting out the agencies - "for a fee, let us refer direct and cut out the booking agency you use from some deals - they won't chuck you off, as they want that remaining business".  So I am not surprised to see a shakeout with Late Rooms going to the wall.

Normally, I don't like paying commission on deals.   Feels like it's money that should be spent / given direct and leads to price increases / agencies feel like they're organisations making a profit from people's lack of knowledge - on this forum, we criticise some rail ticket agencies for offering nothing or very little in addition to tickets, except for a commission charge.  Late rooms were somewhat different for us - they did provide us with access to a market that we otherwise didn't have.  I'll remember them fondly.

I’ve recently booked through another similar website with the free cancellation deal. I had a call within 24 hours from the hotel, if I use the free cancellation and book direct they’ll knock £15 off the room rate or a free upgrade for the same price.
Is this a commonly done thing to avoid the commissions

I don't think people realize just how much commission these hotel booking sites are charging hotels. It's a lot. I had a bad experience with a hotel booking site once, but I still use them. To search for a hotel then go direct to the hotel often getting a better price.

It's a bit like train ticket sites, you pay a booking fee if you book with them. Go direct to a train company website you can book tickets for anywhere in the UK and not pay a booking fee. When you tell people that you get the same reaction every time 'oh I didn't know that'.

These are brands that have passed through a number of hands over the years. At its peak First Choice bought Late Rooms for over £100M, and passed through TUI, and Cox and Kings before being spun out by the latter. Trading of the Malvern Group has not been that good for some time; they were trying to reposition themselves as a technology company but have made a loss in the last two years.

Superbreak is the more interesting one to me in that it started as a pre-internet company that used to sell hotels often with associated rail travel back into the 1980s.

A colleague, many year back, used to enjoy holidays on the Norfolk Broads but out of absolute peak season. Rather than book through the Hoseasons or Blakes brochures (yes that long ago) who were essentially doing what commission based websites do now, she would call the independent boatyards direct a few day before departure. It was not unusual to get some bargains at amazing discounts for these late bookings, completely cutting out the middle man. If memory serves right, some of the offers were for significantly more than 50% off the brochure price.

Although I had the Late Rooms app on my phone I don't think I ever used it.

Earlier this week I had a room booked at a hotel through another booking site and as I was literally 200 yards from the hotel I received a call to say the booking had been cancelled because of a small fire overnight.   Luckily I was able to find an alternative, albeit more expensive, hotel.

This morning I had an email relating to the original room asking me to rate my stay...….. ;D

Late Rooms really didn't like commission rates being declares ... as it's history, here's a little sum.

Normal room rate £95.00 ... let's fill it on Late Rooms at the last minute for £85.
£85 - latterly 18% commission -> £69.70 ... and remember VAT at 20% will drop that to £58.08
Not quite comparing like for like as the £95 also includes VAT.

They also don't like hotels offering rooms at cheaper rates than on their site - but the practise has become so widespread they can to little to avoid it.

If anyone wants a two-bed thatched cottage in North Devon at a significant discount from the online price, let me know. Purely for research purposes, obviously...